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Team of the Year

The voting for team of the year ended Sunday, so I thought I'd offer my predictions on who I think will pick up the awards and why.

Outside Hitter - Jonas Napier and Niels Knudsen
Napier passes half the court even in three man serve reception, and gets kills when everyone in the gym knows the ball is going to him. Niels has had a great season for us as well, being a very good passer and attacker on the outside.
Honorable Mention: Tobias Nielsen

Middle Blockers - Mikkel Vestergaard and Flemming Olufsen
Having Mikkel playing again this year has been great for us, and the one-two combination of him and Flemming has carried us at times. The only thing that limits them is our ability to get them the ball.
Honorable Mention: Matthew Lebourdias and Per Eggers

Opposite - Shaun Powell
Easily the best attacker in the Elitedivision, he has the ability to hit over any block from the front or back row.
Honorable Mention: Kasper Munk

Setter - Jordan Hove
Another easy choice. He makes Marienlyst run, and has an excellent ability to turn bad passes into a fast, accurate offense.
Honorable Mention: Sebastian Mikelsons

Libero - BT Knudsen
He made some amazing digs in the cup final, and every time I see him play he comes up with at least one incredible defense ball.
Honorable Mention: Jonas Søndergaard

Newcomer of the Year - Kasper Munk
Served and attacked great against us, and was a big part of Holte's success this year.
Honorable Mention: Simon Bitsch

Player of the Year - Jordan Hove
This is a close call between him and Napier, but if you look at wins and losses, Hove has to take it. He's gotten his team to the finals, and already has two cup wins under his belt. It's difficult for a setter to take over a match the way that an outside hitter can, but Hove still manages to with his serving and defense.

Final #1

The first final was Wednesday night, and it ended up being a disappointing one for us as we lost to Marienlyst 3-1. The set scores were 22-25, 16-25, 25-14, and 21-25.

In both the first and fourth sets we had leads of a few points but couldn't do anything with it, and both the second and third sets were easy wins for Marienlyst and us, respectively. Both teams ended up finishing the match with different outside hitters; Steen came in for Tue and did a good job with his first significant playing time in the postseason, while for Marienlyst Peter Schøler came in for Jon Daze, who seemed to be having shoulder problems.

Our big issue was poor serve reception, which limited our ability to run the middles. Mikkel Søe got four or five points nearly every time he served, and we had trouble in some other rotations as well. We actually managed to win some good points in counterattack, but the high number of points we lost in sideout made those gains negligible.

We now go to Marienlyst in the same situation as last year, and we should expect the environment to be the same: a loud, sauna-like hall and a heavy dose of Powell in attack. We will obviously be looking for a different result this year, and if we sideout better we can send it to a third game.

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Finals Bound!

After a dramatic and hard-fought game Saturday evening, we are headed to the finals for the second straight year. As much as things didn't go our way in the second semifinal Wednesday, they did on Saturday night, as we were able to win points at critical times and come back from big deficeits in the third and fourth sets. The set scores for the match were 25-22, 22-25, 23-25, and 22-25.

The second semifinal on Wednesday wasn't the greatest from our point of view, and we made a ton of service errors that took a lot of pressure off Gentofte. Napier absolutely went off in the first set, serving from 16-13 to finish off the set. He continued to be the offense for Gentofte for the rest of the match, getting plenty of kills from both the front and back row and leading Gentofte to a win.

Saturday night we knew we would have to stop him if we were going to have a chance of winning. We made some adjustments in our block and refocused our efforts on serving, and felt like we could slow him down enough to force other people to make some plays. The first and second sets were very similar; both teams traded sideouts and played tight throughout, with Gentofte taking the first and us taking the second.

The third set was nearly all Gentofte, and they opened up a lead of five or six points late in the set. We didn't get worried, and got three or four points each from Niels and me serving, which put us out in front and gave us control of the set. We sided out to finish the set and take a 2-1 set lead, putting us in firm control of the match.

Any control or momentum that we had was lost, however, when Gentofte came out and opened up a 9-1 lead in the next set. But as in the third, we sided out on the first ball each time and got at least one or two points off our own serve. We tied up the game around 14, and with that came the feeling that winning the set was inevitable. Gentofte looked rattled, and our service pressure ended up being too much for them. We recieved serve at 24-20 (from Napier, who strangely enough was always serving at the end of the sets Saturday night), and they got a couple points, but Thomas got the final kill to send us to the finals.

Thomas deserves some special mention because he came off the bench and played great for us, and was huge in the comebacks in the third and fourth sets. Another thing that made this win so big is that it was the first victory for Aalborg in Kildeskovshallen since 2005.

After Sunday night's other semifinal, we now know we will be playing Marienlyst, in what will be a rematch of last year's championship. The first match is Thursday 9 April at 16:00 in Aalborg.

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